Saturday in Del Ray

Saturday morning we packed up the girls and headed to a great little neighborhood in Alexandria called Del Ray. It is filled with charming little boutiques, specialty shops, restaurants and a farmer's market (Saturday mornings through the beginning of December). The Music Festival that drew us there in the first place was very small, but everyone seemed to be enjoying it. We spent most of our time walking around and looking in the shops, my favorite being "Eight Hands Round". This place offers quite an array of antiques as well as new items. I'm pretty sure you could find a great and unique gift for anyone you know in that place.

And I can't review Del Ray without mentioning food. I found my favorite new coffee shop ~ "St. Elmo's Coffee Pub". It offers lots of seating (inside and out) with great coffee, yummy food (breakfast items, sweets, and lunch items), and art for purchase on the walls. I would be there every Saturday morning if I lived closer! Anyway, besides coffee, we took the girls for frozen custard at "The Dairy Godmother". It was great and very refreshing on a hot Saturday. Also worth mentioning is a great cheese shop called "Cheesetique" with more cheeses than you can begin to imagine and a butcher shop called "Let's Meat On The Avenue". Stop by those two places and the farmer's market and you've got yourself a great array of food to serve for dinner!

We'll definitely return to Del Ray as I'm sure I'll be craving St. Elmo's coffee. Already on our calendar is the Art Fair in October!

As a side note, we returned to Del Ray this evening for dinner. We dined at a fabulous Italian restaurant on Mt. Vernon Avenue called La Strada. It was a little pricey, but the food was delicious! We will absolutely go back and recommend it to friends!